Edge of Midnight
Edge of Midnight
Leslie Tentler
The collection isn't complete without her.… The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer.After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She'll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends."The shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson." —Publishers Weekly on Midnight Caller
The collection isn’t complete without her.…
The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer. After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.
FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She’ll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends.
The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer. After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.
FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She’ll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends.
“The shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson.”
—Publishers Weekly on Midnight Caller
Praise for Leslie Tentler’s
Chasing Evil trilogy
MIDNIGHT CALLER
“A smooth prose style and an authentic
Big Easy vibe distinguish Tentler’s debut…
the shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Filled with suspense and mystery and
centered around a compelling plot with a
terrifying villain…this is one riveting read.”
—RT Book Reviews
“A romantic thriller that continually
keeps you on the edge of your seat.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Midnight Caller is a heart-thumping page turner…
Ms. Tentler’s debut plants her solidly into the
romantic suspense genre with a bang.”
—Romance Junkies
MIDNIGHT FEAR
“…Mesmerizing… Tentler’s ability to draw out suspense while wrapping it in captivating,
visceral fear is amplified in this exceptional thriller…impossible to put down.”
—Examiner.com
“The chilling look inside the mind of a
serial killer will haunt readers long after
[it] reaches its stunning conclusion.”
—The Reader’s Round Table
“It isn’t too often that I read a good mystery
where I don’t see the ending coming…
all of the twists and turns make this story
a roller coaster of a ride [and] well worth the read.”
—Nocturne Reads
“An amazing story.
The murders and mystery are chilling.…”
—Romance Books Forum
Edge of Midnight
Leslie Tentler
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
For my husband, Robert.
I love you.
Contents
Prologue (#u3d081fa4-c32e-5a59-8380-68f6c1ae2a56)
Chapter 1 (#u1612dd82-197e-5d2d-9a3c-80d0e8d6eb09)
Chapter 2 (#u9422c18e-3d9a-5720-a78c-29bb07fac659)
Chapter 3 (#u114f0157-56e5-5f72-a98f-ccff407a37c1)
Chapter 4 (#uc2d98814-7ba7-5ed9-9630-5961f85d05e8)
Chapter 5 (#ua6aa171f-4d9b-5bdf-bb42-84327e042dda)
Chapter 6 (#u74ba7fe7-934b-5339-affb-68b7b7386b16)
Chapter 7 (#ud47fae8d-d481-5342-bacf-01fafda3c597)
Chapter 8 (#u087ca65b-94c6-5996-ad5a-4efcbccb6b12)
Chapter 9 (#u1fc29475-05ce-5a7e-af44-20a8b1005194)
Chapter 10 (#u6f7b493d-1eb8-51a5-9ecc-419253c74b14)
Chapter 11 (#ub6b5b338-fc45-5436-8e55-ceb9c838298c)
Chapter 12 (#u546d405a-f2c6-567f-9628-97b866478735)
Chapter 13 (#ufca44396-5d3c-5692-b540-0fbe00950efe)
Chapter 14 (#ufa1ecedb-1aaa-5f34-b475-dd84bb507a43)
Chapter 15 (#ue6f3aa27-6a35-5c96-bc11-c6a91ad858d8)
Chapter 16 (#u65888fb9-09f1-51cc-bd97-683fac136f20)
Chapter 17 (#u1e6904c7-8952-5492-8515-ed866daa925d)
Chapter 18 (#u76aad757-3ee6-507c-988c-a5238fc585b1)
Chapter 19 (#u432c7fcf-f3af-5354-834c-11d87d8afcd7)
Chapter 20 (#u19ed482d-6556-528e-9a5a-2089b795f529)
Chapter 21 (#u3f61ec3d-c203-5690-ad42-0648610edf82)
Chapter 22 (#u75f95b5c-24e5-5d84-8da2-cbf6ce116453)
Chapter 23 (#udbacdfb1-eb61-5ab1-b75b-488b2f76edf6)
Chapter 24 (#ud157bc68-a413-5a58-b46b-cec45a61b070)
Chapter 25 (#u339e48c4-650a-5d84-9650-905f515b5922)
Chapter 26 (#u65e1106e-9cc5-54fa-954d-fc5b25feccd7)
Chapter 27 (#ub37e468c-51bc-5c38-b574-7ea7c06733f5)
Chapter 28 (#ude410635-dddc-5a0f-8cf5-03d75dce88de)
Chapter 29 (#ucc9637d4-06ef-58f5-a7aa-73f219833d2a)
Chapter 30 (#ub4af934b-46ee-5f4b-85ab-78aa984521a6)
Chapter 31 (#u7e0f27d3-d079-5d3c-9b64-8b25139a9d77)
Chapter 32 (#uc430a98d-6688-5c87-aa9e-dea270e52e13)
Chapter 33 (#u7bb2ebd2-0b45-5ebd-ba97-331b4ed6e040)
Chapter 34 (#u358b0197-0306-5159-a3e8-c0441cdfa266)
Chapter 35 (#u3ad7489e-f265-52ff-ac6a-f8f501eacd48)
Chapter 36 (#u5eb0551a-84dd-5230-802e-9c1acb8bceb7)
Chapter 37 (#u897e9cd2-3921-5125-9244-f211b286ecb4)
Chapter 38 (#uce322c37-4e03-56fb-b15d-6f4c8474e423)
Chapter 39 (#udf8e0b51-2ec9-5d44-9e3a-db45649fb933)
Chapter 40 (#u057d679a-f32b-5cb5-9d76-f87b4a4497fb)
Chapter 41 (#u0d58197e-8918-5f94-96ff-0b77f858c9f1)
Epilogue (#ufe5f78c9-8ae5-579b-989f-5463b15c94c1)
Prologue
Atlantic Beach
Outside Jacksonville, Florida
Officer John Penotti took a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee, fighting the drowsiness that always came in the last remaining hours before daybreak. Listening to the command radio’s static, he peered through the cruiser’s windshield as it traveled along a remote portion of state road A1A. His partner, Tommy Haggard, was behind the wheel, humming a tune that had been playing at the all-night diner they’d recently departed. The rain had ended and beside them, the endless stretch of the Atlantic appeared to be nearly one with the blackened sky, with only the foamy whitecaps of ocean waves breaking through the darkness.
“You taking vacation this summer?” Tommy asked.
“You sound like my wife. I keep telling her we already live at the beach.”
Tommy kept his left arm poised coolly on the window’s rim as he used his right hand to steer the cruiser. He was younger than John by a decade and still had the energy to do more than sit in front of his television with a cold beer on his days off. “So do something different. Go hiking in the mountains, or take the kids to Disney World.”
“They’re getting too old for it.”
Tommy gave him a look. “Too old? I had my honeymoon at Disney, man.”
A snide comment formed on John’s tongue, but he let it pass as he placed his foam cup in the holder and nodded toward the road ahead of them. “Look up there.”
“Great,” Tommy muttered, annoyed. He slowed the cruiser and activated the light bar on the roof as they approached.
The silver Acura had taken out a good ten feet of wooden stake fencing that separated the environmentally protected sand dunes from the highway. It had veered off the still-wet road and plowed into one of the mounds, its crumpled front end embedded into white sand. The driver’s side door hung open. They’d had a quiet night so far, John thought, with only a minor traffic violation and some teens trying to buy beer at the local Gas ’N Go with a fake ID.
“Probably a DUI,” he surmised. “Idiot’s probably passed out on the beach.”
Tommy cut the engine but kept the cruiser’s light bar on, staining the Acura with rhythmic blue streaks. Getting out, John pulled his flashlight from his utility belt and trained its beam into the car’s darkened interior.
“Empty,” he confirmed as he moved to the open door. The air bag had deployed in the crash and hung from the steering wheel like a deflated balloon. “Tennessee plate. Want to call in the tags?”
Tommy headed back to the cruiser as John leaned into the car for a closer look. Blood droplets, still wet, were visible on the air bag. Frowning, he raised the flashlight higher, illuminating more of the interior. While it was possible the bag’s release had broken the driver’s nose, there was a lot of blood on the seats—drying brown smears that looked as though rusty fingers had been wiped against the leather.
“The car’s stolen.” Tommy returned to John’s side. “The owner’s vacationing here and reported it missing two days ago.”
“We’ve got blood.”
Tommy peered inside. “Any open containers?”
“No.” Straightening, John walked around to the front end of the car. He put his hand on the hood. It was still warm. Squinting onto the darkened beach, he filled his lungs with briny sea air, then sighed in resignation. “Let’s go look for the driver.”
As they crossed one of the walkovers—plank bridges that provided access to the beach while protecting the dunes from foot traffic—John unsnapped his holster. He noticed that Tommy—always in search of excitement—had already unsheathed his firearm and held it poised in front of him as if he were part of a SWAT team conducting a raid. Normally, he gave his partner hell about his gung-ho tendencies, but this time he acknowledged that the car’s stolen status did increase the possibility of an armed perp.
“Footprints,” Tommy noted as John’s flashlight swept the packed sand at the bottom of the wooden steps leading onto the beach. The prints were narrow with only a shallow indention, indicating that whoever had abandoned the crashed vehicle wasn’t too remarkable in size, and was also barefoot.
They followed the trail for a couple hundred feet before it veered into another village of sand dunes anchored by thick ocean grasses and vegetation. John raised the flashlight, sweeping the area. A shadowed form crouched behind a scraggly cluster of oak trees, barely visible and as still as a rabbit trying not to end up as quarry.
“This is the Atlantic Beach Police,” John announced in an authoritative tone, removing his weapon. Tommy stood beside him, already in shooting stance, his gun’s barrel pointed into the trees. “Come out slowly with your hands on your head!”
The form remained motionless.
“Come out now!” John stepped carefully closer and focused the flashlight’s beam directly on the figure.
“You think we won’t shoot you, asshole?” Tommy yelled. “There’s two of us and only one of—”
John laid a hand on his partner’s arm, pushing the gun’s nose down. “Christ. Put that away.”
The huddled form was a woman. She squatted on the ground, her slender arms wrapped around herself in a protective gesture. A curtain of sleek, dark hair concealed her face, but the flashlight illuminated her skin and the dried blood on her hands, arms and legs. At first, John thought she wore a bathing suit, but realized with a jolt it was only a skimpy pair of panties and a lace bra. She trembled in the beam’s filmy swath.
“Ma’am? You all right?” He came a few steps closer, one hand stretched toward her. To Tommy he said, “Go back to the car, get a blanket and call for an ambulance.”
Once Tommy had taken off, John sank on his haunches to the woman’s level. If she was aware of his presence, she gave no indication.
“Ma’am?” he asked again. His fingers grazed her shoulder, which seemed to break the trance she was in. She cried out and scrambled backward, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her ragged breathing.
“It’s gonna be all right. I’m a police officer. We’re sending for help.”
Her brown eyes were wide with fear or confusion, her pupils dilated, a likely indication of a head injury, or possibly drugs. Her nose was bleeding a little but didn’t appear to be broken, and John wondered how badly she was hurt. She had a lot of blood on her, but he couldn’t ascertain its source. Her wrists, however, were red and badly abraded.
Wherever she’d come from, she’d been tied up.
“What’s your name?”
The woman blinked at him warily.
“M-Mia,” she managed to say after a long moment. She sounded uncertain, her voice barely audible above the roar of the ocean waves behind them. Even in her current distress, she appeared pretty and a little exotic, with an oval face and delicate features, and was maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. John noticed the fresh bruise shadowing her jawline.
“Can you tell me what happened to you, Mia?”
A fresh wave of tremors racked her body as she squeezed her eyes closed. “I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember?”
She shook her head, biting her lip. Her long, dark hair lifted in the ocean breeze. John noticed a wide section of it was several inches shorter than the rest, as if a handful of it had been carelessly lopped off.
She jumped at the sound of Tommy bounding back across the walkover toward them.
“It’s okay,” John assured her. “That’s my partner, Officer Haggard. I’m Officer Penotti. You’re safe now, all right?”
Tommy appeared beside him, out of breath from his speedy trip to the cruiser. “There’s a bus on the way.”
She recoiled as he moved forward to wrap her in the blanket he’d brought back.
“Sorry…I’ll just hand it to you.” Tommy held it out. Her left hand shook as she inched forward, tentatively reaching out to take it.
Two of her fingernails were completely missing, the exposed nail beds raw and oozing blood. Had they been ripped out in some kind of struggle? John swallowed hard. What appeared to be the number eight—or maybe the infinity sign—had been carved into the pale skin of her stomach, the wound angry and red. He watched as she managed to drape the scratchy blanket around herself, her petite frame nearly disappearing inside it. She continued to shiver and rock.
“You think she was raped?” Tommy asked a short time later, voice low. They had stepped several yards from the dunes and allowed the paramedics to take over.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Probably. A female medic had coaxed the woman onto a gurney, and John could only catch glimpses of her through the gaggle of emergency workers. Overhead, blue-and-red flashing lights from the road reflected into the still-dark sky.
“Hey, Carl,” John called to an EMT as he went past, headed back to the ambulance. “What’s the deal?”
“We won’t know until we get her to the E.R. for a tox screen, but my guess is she’s on something. She’s pretty out of it. Doesn’t even remember driving here.”
“What about all the blood on her?”
“Other than her fingers and stomach, there are no other wounds—at least none significant enough to account for all that blood. I gotta get something out of the bus, all right?” Carl trotted away.
Which meant what? That some of the blood belonged to someone else? John removed his uniform cap and ran a hand through his hair.
Nearby Jacksonville was no stranger to violence. Like any large city, it had its share of assaults and homicides, drug deals gone wrong. But for the large part, the surrounding beach communities were quiet, with occasional rowdy teenagers and drunken tourists their most typical problems.
He thought of the two women who had gone missing in Jacksonville over the past two weeks and wondered if there was a connection. Neither had been found, but to his recollection neither of them had been named Mia, either. John had heard the young woman telling the female medic that her last name was Hale. It rang some kind of bell, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Regardless, he didn’t like what was going on here.
1
FBI special agent Eric Macfarlane faced the cluster of oak trees, his suit coat discarded on the warm, pale sand. His eyes were closed, the strong ocean breeze ruffling his light brown hair, and the sun’s heat was like a brand through the back of his blue dress shirt. Seagulls cried in the air overhead.
He tried to imagine what it felt like to crash on an isolated beach road, in a strange car and with lost hours that couldn’t be accounted for.
Eric had read the Atlantic Beach Police incident report multiple times—in his office yesterday at the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit in Washington, D.C., then again on the plane bound for Jacksonville International Airport early that morning. Despite the warmth of the Florida climate, even now the similarities contained in the document made a chill crawl beneath his skin.
If it was him, if he had finally resurfaced…
The thought caused his emotions to skitter like stones skipped on water.
“Eric.”
He turned to see Florida Bureau agent Cameron Vartran walking toward him, looking as out of place in suit pants, tie and a dress shirt on the beach as Eric did himself.
“I thought I might find you here,” Cameron said. Dark-haired, grinning, he shook Eric’s hand warmly, then gave him a congenial back slap that denoted familiarity between the two men.
“Your investigative skills are that good?” Eric asked.
“That and the field office told me you’d checked in and asked about the crash site.”
Eric and Cameron had known one another for years. They had gone through training together at the FBI academy in Quantico, then been partnered as agents for a time before Cameron had transferred back to his native Florida and Eric had joined the VCU.
“How’s Lanie?” Eric asked.
“Pregnant.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really? Congratulations.”
“She can’t wait to see you. It’s been way too long.” Standing with his dress shoes planted in sand, Cameron wedged his hands on his hips just above his holstered gun. As he looked at Eric, his expression faded into seriousness. “When the match came up in ViCAP, I thought that you’d want to know.”
Eric nodded, peering off briefly into the distance. “So how did this end up with the Florida Bureau?”
“Some of the local beach communities have their own police forces, but they’re small and not equipped for major crimes. So the report was passed to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office as a possible tie-in to two other missing females in the metro area over the past couple of weeks. The JSO called us in for assistance. I called you.”
“Have either of the two other women shown up?”
Cameron shook his head. “Alive or otherwise. It’s suspected Ms. Hale was the intended third victim, but somehow managed to escape her abductor.”
“In a stolen vehicle and without any memory of her ordeal.”
“Right. Her toxicology results just came back. Combination of Rohypnol and gamma-hydroxy-butyramine—the date rape drug and liquid Ecstasy—which explains the severe memory loss. The attending physician classified her as having complete anterograde amnesia.”
Eric thought of the victim’s wounds that had been detailed in the report—the second and third fingernails on her left hand excised, a section of her hair cut off, and the numeral that had been carved into her skin. It seemed too precise to be coincidental. He felt a spiraling disquiet. The Collector had been off the VCU’s radar for thirty-four months now, fueling internal speculation that he was either dead or incarcerated somewhere on unrelated charges.
Eric had never been able to accept that.
“Damn, it’s hot.” Squinting against the light, Cameron removed the sunglasses clipped to his shirt pocket and slid them on. “Maybe we can grab a quick bite to eat and catch up before the briefing with the JSO detectives at one. There’s a great seafood place down the road from here. Only the locals know about it.”
They began walking across the sand, and Eric bent to retrieve his suit coat, slinging it over his shoulder. As Cameron talked, he gazed back toward the water. Although the beach here wasn’t as commercialized, he noticed there were still a few people strolling along the shore. The ocean appeared calm under an azure sky and farther out, the grayish outline of naval ships floated on the horizon.
“So Mia Hale—she’s a reporter for the Jacksonville Courier?” Eric said as they came down the planked stairs that led back to the road. The information was still surprising.
Cameron nodded. “A crime reporter. She’d been covering the missing women—both assumed abductions since the women’s families are adamant they aren’t the type to just disappear. Ms. Hale’s last story ran on Monday morning, and she vanished that same night out of the newspaper’s parking garage. The beach police found her hiding here some eight hours later, stripped to her underwear and in pretty bad shape. My guess is that her articles got someone’s attention.”
“What about the vehicle? Any leads from it?”
“The Sheriff’s Office processed it. Forensics on the car is expected back this afternoon. Ms. Hale doesn’t recall how she got in possession of it or even where she drove it from. The vehicle was reported stolen a couple of days earlier from an outlet shopping mall popular with tourists. The mall’s on the other side of the city.”
A few dozen feet away, a wide section of fencing that cordoned off the dunes was missing, its wooden stakes scattered like broken matchsticks between clumps of brown sea oats. It was all that was left of the crash scene. Eric studied the area.
“I’m going to want to talk to Ms. Hale.”
“She was released from the hospital yesterday. We can schedule some time with her.”
The government-issued vehicle the other agent drove was parked behind Eric’s rental sedan on the sandy shoulder of the A1A. Cameron provided directions to the nearby restaurant, then removed his sunglasses again. Concern was evident in his eyes. “The truth is, I wasn’t sure the VCU would want you involved, Eric, considering.”
Rebecca. Her image, her voice, had faded a little in his memory, the realization tightening his jaw. The last time Eric had seen Cameron and Lanie was at the funeral. That had been nearly three years ago.
“I pulled a few strings,” he admitted.
“I bet. And you came down here without a partner?”
“Resources are limited. I told them I’d be better off working with my old one down here.”
“The timing works. My partner tore his ACL. He’s out on leave.” Cameron appeared to choose his next words carefully. “If this really is the guy…are you going to be able to handle it?”
Eric specialized in serial murderers at the VCU. He was all too aware that unsubs had relocated in the past, had gone into hiding to evade capture. But ultimately, their innate desires drove them to hunt again.
“I want closure,” he said simply.
Cameron sighed as he gazed at a passing car on the highway. “I know you do.”
“I don’t want you coming into work, Mia,” Grayson Miller said over the phone. “That’s final.”
“I could just attend the editorial meetings—”
“Give yourself a little time to recover, all right? You live on the coast for a reason—go soak up the sun or something.” He paused to speak to someone in his office, and Mia imagined Grayson sitting at his desk at the Jacksonville Courier, bifocals perched on his nose as he red-penned the hell out of someone’s story. When he returned to the conversation, he lowered his voice. “Look, I’m going to come over there after work and check on you.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve got Will and Justin downstairs—”
“Indulge me. I need to see for myself that you’re all right.”
The sincerity in his words made Mia’s throat ache.
“When I came into work that morning and saw your car here with the door open and your purse inside it, it scared me. I’ve been executive editor here for thirteen years and nothing like this has ever happened. One of my reporters, taken right out of the parking garage. You’re special to me, Mia. It’s a miracle you’re alive.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed down the emotion that seemed to be at her surface these days. “Grayson…”
“I’m bringing dinner. Pizza from Mario’s or Thai from that place around the corner. I expect an email by six letting me know which.”
“Thai food,” she whispered, and disconnected the phone.
Mia remained on the balcony of her apartment, hating the fact that she was shivering despite the sun’s warmth. Placing the phone on the glass-topped patio table, she pulled the sash of her short, kimono-style robe more tightly around herself and stared blindly over the canopy of trees at a lush park in Jacksonville’s historic San Marco neighborhood. Grayson was right, she conceded—she wasn’t ready to go back to work. But the truth she would never admit to anyone but herself was that she didn’t want to be alone. The bustle of the newsroom, a story assignment, even a simple one, could help take her mind off things.
The only problem was, she was part of the story now. Or at least the one everyone was talking about. Mia felt another tremor pass through her.
Try as she might, and she’d tried hard, she couldn’t remember anything. Detectives from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, as well as an agent from the local FBI field office, had quizzed her, but not even a fragment of those lost hours had returned. Her last memory was of leaving the office late after filing a breaking story. She’d said good-night to Ronnie, one of the evening janitors, and walked out to her car in the balmy evening. Mia had clicked the key fob, deactivating her ancient Volvo’s security system, and tossed her purse into the front seat.
Her next memory was of awakening in a crashed car that didn’t belong to her, on an unfamiliar stretch of darkened beachside road. Covered with blood, trembling and confused, her inner voice had screamed at her to run. Hide. Even now, the cold fear of the unknown pooled inside her.
The beach police who’d found her, the emergency workers at the scene and then later, the doctors and nurses in the hospital E.R.—it had all been a blur of people poking at her, taking blood and checking her vitals, asking myriad questions she couldn’t answer. Her lungs squeezed at the recollection of the invasive, degrading rape examination and her acute relief when it appeared she hadn’t been assaulted in that way. Mia had asked one of the nurses to call Grayson, knowing he typically arrived at the paper well before daylight, and discovered that he had already reported her missing.
Remnants of the dull headache that was like a hangover were still with her—the result of the illegal, black market drugs in her system, she’d been told.
What had happened to her? Who had she escaped from and how?
Speculation was that whoever had taken the two women Mia had written about had targeted her, as well. And those women were still unaccounted for. As a reporter, she’d always tried to maintain a level of objectivity. That was all gone now. She felt a kinship with those women, wondered if they were still being held somewhere. Or if they were dead.
The warm breeze lifted her hair. Mia pressed one hand against her stomach, her gaze lingering on the ugly abrasion encircling her wrist. Through the robe’s silk material, she could feel the raised edges of the bizarre, scabbed carving on her skin. No bikinis for me anytime soon, she thought, trying to inject some humor into an otherwise terrifying situation. The tips of the second and third fingers on her left hand were bandaged and sore.
You’re tough, Mia. You’ve been through bad things before and you’ll get through this.
She went back inside her apartment, which was large and airy, with high ceilings and antique heart pine floors. From down the hall she could hear the police scanner she kept in her home office, its low chatter a strange but familiar sound. Walking to the granite-topped island that separated the kitchen from the living area, she eyed the copy of the Jacksonville Courier. Mia had taken it from her doorstep hours earlier but so far had been unable to read it. The headline below the banner was innocuously political—a standoff between the county and state over shoreline zoning rights.
Gathering her courage, she unfolded the paper, scanning the front-page news first and then opening it to the second page, which she laid flat against the countertop. Grayson had already warned her that Walt Rudner, a senior reporter nearly twice Mia’s age, had taken over the story on the local abductions.
A story that now included her, at least anonymously. As she read Walt’s follow-up article to the larger one that had appeared earlier in the week, she felt her stomach flip-flop all over again.
A thirty-one-year-old woman believed to have been a third abductee managed to escape during the early hours of Tuesday morning. Due to her sustained injuries, the victim has so far been unable to provide any information that could be useful to the investigation, according to a spokesperson for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office…
The concluding paragraph stated that the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit out of D.C. had been called in as a special consult.
A rap at the door made her jump. She moved to the foyer and peered out through the peephole, her shoulders sagging in relief when she saw Will Dvorak, who lived on the first floor and also co-owned the building. It bothered her that a simple knock had kicked her pulse into overdrive. Despite all of this, Mia vowed she wouldn’t turn into a frightened shell of who she’d once been.
“Get dressed. We’re going to be late,” Will announced as he entered the apartment, kissing Mia’s cheek. He was medium height, with russet hair and blue eyes. As usual, he was immaculately dressed in khakis and a pressed, short-sleeve shirt, and his designer sunglasses hung from a cord around his neck.
“Dressed? Where are we going?”
“Justin called from Élan. One of his hairstylists had a cancellation and you’re the lucky girl.” Justin Cho was Will’s partner and a successful entrepreneur who operated a number of ventures around the city, including one of Jacksonville’s top day spas. “I told him I’d bring you down.”
Mia shook her head. “That’s sweet. But I’m really not up to it.”
Will gave her an understanding smile but ignored her comment. “Afterward, we’ll have lunch at that place you like on the Riverwalk. The fresh air will do you good.”
She must have appeared unconvinced, because he placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around, guiding her toward the hall bathroom. Will was a good friend. In fact, in many ways he was the closest she had to family.
“Will…”
“This is for your own good.” He flipped on the light, bringing Mia face-to-face with herself in the beveled mirror above the marble vanity. She flinched at her own pale, haunted reflection.
Her dark hair was a mess. And it wasn’t just the fact that it hadn’t been brushed with any recent regularity. The wide swath that had been chopped off during those missing hours gave her a lopsided appearance—as if she were a child who had attempted to give herself a haircut.
“It’s just not a good look, honey,” Will said softly.
Mia frowned, touching the faint bruise on her jaw with her bandaged fingers. Her cocoa-brown eyes were liquid and questioning. She tried again to remember something about what had happened to her, but it was like trying to see through a black mist. She looked at Will in the mirror as he stood behind her. His gaze held concern.
She wouldn’t let this wreck her.
Sucking in a tense breath, Mia left the bathroom to get dressed. “All right. Tell Justin we’ll be there.”
2
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was a combined city and county agency that handled law enforcement in both Jacksonville and the greater Duval County. Eric sat in the JSO conference room on East Bay Street with Cameron and the two detectives who had initially been assigned to the missing-person cases. Detective Boyet was heavyset and balding, while his partner, Detective Scofield, was a blonde, athletic-looking woman in her mid-forties.
“There was more than one blood type in the Acura,” Eric noted as he scanned the forensics report on the car Mia Hale had crashed.
Boyet nodded, his chair squeaking as he shifted his weight. “The blood type on the steering wheel and air bag are a match to Ms. Hale, as are the fingerprints found inside the vehicle. But the larger smears on the front seat are the same blood type as Cissy Cox, our second missing person. Although DNA testing isn’t completed yet, Ms. Cox is O negative. That’s a rare blood type—only about five percent of the population. Its presence makes it likely she was also in the car at some point.”
“Or, the smears were a transfer from Ms. Hale’s hands.” Seeing the detective’s puzzled expression, Eric explained further. “She could’ve come into contact with the second abductee’s blood at the location where she was held. It’s possible she had it on her when she escaped and wiped her hands on the seat before driving away.”
Cameron rose from the table, and he leaned his tall, athletic frame against the wall near a plate-glass window overlooking a line of palm trees. “Speaking of, how did she drive away? The car was stolen—were the keys inside it?”
“It was hot-wired,” Boyet supplied. “Whether she did it herself or the perp did it, Ms. Hale knew at least enough to twist the wires together properly to get the ignition started. I’d say that’s an interesting skill for a journalist. Especially one blitzed out on roofies.”
“Any other prints inside the car?” Eric asked.
“Just hers.”
Detective Scofield spoke. “We’ve had a few dealings with Ms. Hale as a reporter, including the recent disappearances. She’s young, but she’s smart. She was pretty shook up when we spoke to her at the hospital, which is to be expected. It will be interesting to see how she handles all this.”
Photos of the first two missing women, as well as several Polaroids of Mia Hale that were taken during the E.R. examination, lay on the table. Eric studied the closest one, which focused on her face and revealed a faint bruise on her right jaw. She was pretty, he noticed, with a pale olive complexion, dark hair and doelike brown eyes that in the snapshot were glazed with a combination of drugs, confusion and fear. He felt a hard tug of sympathy. His gaze moved to the two other E.R. photos, which displayed the injuries to her abdomen and hand. The interconnecting loops of the number eight were visible on her flat, tanned stomach.
“What kind of twisted bastard does something like that?” Boyet indicated the third Polaroid. Open, raw wounds existed where two of her fingernails should have been. “The E.R. doc said her nails were probably pulled out using pliers or some other tool.”
“Her injuries are consistent with the signature,” Eric said.
Scofield gave a shiver of revulsion. “She’s probably glad she doesn’t have any memory of what happened to her. I know I’d be.”
Eric tried not to think of Rebecca, what she’d gone through. “Are there any similarities or connections between the abducted women? The same socioeconomic status, or maybe they had similar jobs, took the same yoga class or shopped at the same grocery store?”
Cameron pushed off from the wall and began pacing the room. “From a victimology perspective, we haven’t been able to find anything so far. Cissy Cox works at a retail job at the River City Marketplace. Pauline Berger is a stay-at-home mom with a McMansion in Ponte Vedra Beach and a country club membership. Mia Hale lives in the artsy San Marco community, and as you know, works for the Courier. Those are pretty diverse locations and lifestyles.”
“Not to mention, the victims are all over the map, physically.” Scofield pointed to photos of all three women, tapping each with the tip of her ballpoint pen. “A curvy redhead, a tall, Nordic-looking blonde and a petite brunette who’s possibly of mixed Latino or Spanish descent. If you really think this could be a serial killer at work, don’t they have a preferred type?”
“Some do,” Eric acknowledged. “But if this is a resurgence of a past unsub, as I suspect, his tastes are diverse, intentionally so.”
She tilted her head. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“He’s indicated that he likes taking a variety of women. He refers to them as his ‘collection.’”
Scofield blinked. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“He sent digital recordings to the VCU during the previous investigation, although it was likely his voice was altered.” Eric recalled the audios that had been delivered one by one after each woman had gone missing. Even though he didn’t look at Cameron, he felt the weight of his gaze. “The recordings were of his victims being tortured and killed.”
“The VCU deals with some pretty sick shit.” Boyet picked up another of the photos. “What’s the story with the carving?”
“He numbered his victims. There were five women abducted and killed in Maryland before he vanished three years ago. If this is the same guy, your two missing women could be numbers six and seven—”
“Making Mia Hale victim number eight,” Scofield uttered in realization. “Or that was the plan before she got away.”
“Technically, this is still a missing-persons case until a body turns up.” Boyet’s expression was grim. “But if you’re right about the abductor’s identity, Agent Macfarlane, it’s not good. We’re heading into the beach tourist season—Jacksonville doesn’t need a serial killer on the loose.”
“What were you getting at with the second blood type in the car being a transfer?” Cameron asked as he and Eric traveled through the busy JSO lobby a short time later. Although it was still April, heat hit them in a muggy wave as they pushed through glass doors that led to the building’s plaza, then headed west toward the multilevel garage where they had both parked.
“During the Maryland investigation we were able to pick up sounds of two women at once on the recordings.” Eric loosened his tie as he walked. “The first woman—the one being intentionally recorded—was in the foreground. But the AV techs also isolated the sound of a second female in the background on each audio, although the voice was muffled, probably due to a gag.”
Cameron stopped, halting Eric, as well. “Meaning what, exactly?”
He looked out across the water. Jacksonville was known as The River City, and an expanse of the St. Johns that ran through the heart of the downtown was visible from where they stood. He worked to lay out the theory as impassively as possible. “It’s believed the unsub kept two women captive at once. He’d make the newer abductee watch as he killed the woman he’d taken earlier, as a show of power. Then when he brought another woman in, it would be that abductee’s turn to die.”
“Like a revolving door,” Cameron said bleakly. “So you think both women are already dead—that Cissy Cox watched Pauline Berger die, and in turn Mia Hale witnessed Cissy Cox’s execution before she escaped? That’s why she had Ms. Cox’s blood on her?”
Eric thought of the families still holding out hope their loved ones might return home. “Yeah, that’s what I think.”
Cameron’s eyes darkened. He started to say something, but the electronic buzz of his cell phone interrupted him. He looked at the device. “It’s Lanie. I need to take this.”
He stepped a few feet away, talking to his wife about an obstetric appointment. When he closed the phone a minute later, he said, “Lanie says to tell you hello. And that she’s expecting you for dinner tomorrow night. We’d do it tonight but it’s her dad’s sixtieth birthday.”
Eric nodded his understanding. “You’ve got a doctor’s appointment?”
“It’s a routine sonogram. The office called and asked if we could come in early. At four.”
“Go,” he said, glancing at his wristwatch. It was nearly three already. “Lanie needs you. I can handle some things on my own. For starters, I’m going to San Marco to see if I can speak with Ms. Hale today.”
“We can schedule a formal meeting with her tomorrow, after we meet with the rest of the team. Why don’t you get settled in at the rental?”
“I don’t want to wait.”
Cameron took out one of his business cards from the Florida Bureau, upon which Mia Hale’s address and phone number were written. He handed it to Eric.
“The recordings…” He sounded uncertain, as if he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know the answer. “Did you receive one of Rebecca?”
Eric fished in his pocket for his car keys. He thought of the days and weeks he’d waited, both dreading and needing to hear her voice a final time. He didn’t look at Cameron as he answered.
“It was the only one that never came.”
Allan Levi entered the fastidiously neat ranch house.
“Mother? I’m home,” he called, closing the front door behind him. He noticed the interior was too warm, which wasn’t surprising since Gladys was always claiming to be cold and tampering with the thermostat. At least her frugality kept the air-conditioning bills low. Carrying the white paper bag with Walker’s Pharmacy printed on its side, he followed the television noise until he found her sitting at the kitchen table. Her gaunt frame wrapped in a floral housecoat, she was watching the small set on the counter, which she seemed to favor over the larger one in the living room.
“There you are.” Allan bent to kiss the top of her gray head, catching a whiff of baby powder and White Shoulders cologne. He ignored the low warning growl of Puddles, her arthritic Chihuahua, who was curled into a dog bed on the floor nearby.
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she accused. Her eyes remained glued to a religious talk show. “You’ve left me alone all day.”
“You’ve been on your own for three hours,” he corrected. “I had some errands to run. I told you that, remember?”
“Did you get my medicine?”
He gave the bag a shake so the plastic pill vials rattled inside it.
“Humph. Took you long enough.”
“I went into the city to get a television for repair. They’re paying fifty extra for pickup and delivery.”
Allan moved to the sink and washed his hands, taking care to scrub under his fingernails with a small, stiff-bristled brush before drying off with a paper towel. Then he sat in the chair across from Gladys. Depositing the bag’s contents onto the table, he began the process of placing pills and capsules into the lidded, plastic case that helped him keep up with which medications she had to take and when. There were morning, noon and evening compartments for every day of the week. It was tedious, but he didn’t mind the task so much. In fact, he rather enjoyed the order of it.
One red, one blue, one pink.
As he worked, he noticed Gladys had rolled her mobile oxygen canister into the kitchen. The tubing and cannula hung around her flaccid throat like a necklace, however, unused. His eyes slid to the counter. An ashtray sat next to the sink. “Have you been smoking again, Mother?”
“Shush,” she said irritably, waving him off. “I can’t hear my program.”
“I didn’t move all the way back down here to watch you blow yourself up.” Allan frowned. He would have to talk to the cleaning woman—he knew it was that dirty Mexican whore sneaking cigarettes to her and at probably quite a profit. Normally, it would be enough to send him into a rage, but he reminded himself he had a lot for which to be thankful.
For starters, there could be law enforcement crawling all over the place right now.
He placed the last capsule into its proper slot.
“I’m going to my workshop,” he announced, referring to the cinder-block building in back of the property, nestled among the tall pines.
“You spend too much time out there,” Gladys criticized as he rose from the table. She finally looked at him, her watery blue eyes narrowing suspiciously in her lined face. From his vantage point, the droop to the right side of her mouth was clearly visible, a result of the stroke she’d suffered three years ago.
“I need to get started on that television—”
“Boy like you, with an expensive college degree I paid for.” She shook her head, fretful. “And here you are. No wife or kids and not much of a job, if you ask me. ‘Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.’”
He felt his face heat. “I do work, Mother. I’m self-employed. And I take care of you now, too. That’s a job in itself. I’ll be back at five to make you dinner. We’ll have spaghetti with meat sauce—how does that sound?”
Gladys remained sullenly silent. The Chihuahua growled again as Allan left through the kitchen’s screened door. He slunk across the backyard and onto the beaten path through the copse of trees. The skeletal remains of a car went unnoticed. He had much to think about.
It had been two days of uncertainty, but he’d finally begun to relax. No one was coming. According to her own newspaper, she remembered nothing at all. The potent drugs used to make her manageable and compliant had provided the very fortunate ancillary effect of erasing her mind. Allan ran again through his mental checklist, trying to figure out where he had been remiss. What careless blunder he’d made that allowed her to escape.
She had been so special to him, too.
Reaching the cinder-block building, he unlocked the door with his key, flipping on the overhead light as he went inside. Unoccupied. The redhead was rightfully gone, but she should still be here.
He’d first noticed her name bylining the articles on the missing women. His girls. Then a column had run that included her photo. He took a clipped copy from a drawer in his workbench and studied it. The window-box air conditioner behind him hummed. Here, he kept things as cool as he liked.
She was older now, of course. But even after all these years he had still recognized her. What were the chances he’d found her? And that she was a reporter, covering his…work. He didn’t believe in coincidence. It was almost as if it were meant to be.
Allan’s inner voice—the voice of reason—spoke.
She got away and you got lucky. It’s too dangerous. You have to forget about her now.
Pick someone else.
He’d gotten rusty, that was all. Too much time spent trying to keep a low profile, until his darker urges had finally won out. No more Mr. Sloppy, he admonished himself.
The morning’s paper had said the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit was being called in. That couldn’t be helped now and truth be told, it made Allan feel important.
His lips formed a thin smile as he thought of Special Agent Eric Macfarlane and the bond they had shared.
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Leslie Tentler
The collection isn't complete without her.… The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer.After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She'll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends."The shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson." —Publishers Weekly on Midnight Caller
The collection isn’t complete without her.…
The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer. After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.
FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She’ll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends.
The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer. After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.
FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She’ll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends.
“The shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson.”
—Publishers Weekly on Midnight Caller
Praise for Leslie Tentler’s
Chasing Evil trilogy
MIDNIGHT CALLER
“A smooth prose style and an authentic
Big Easy vibe distinguish Tentler’s debut…
the shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Filled with suspense and mystery and
centered around a compelling plot with a
terrifying villain…this is one riveting read.”
—RT Book Reviews
“A romantic thriller that continually
keeps you on the edge of your seat.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Midnight Caller is a heart-thumping page turner…
Ms. Tentler’s debut plants her solidly into the
romantic suspense genre with a bang.”
—Romance Junkies
MIDNIGHT FEAR
“…Mesmerizing… Tentler’s ability to draw out suspense while wrapping it in captivating,
visceral fear is amplified in this exceptional thriller…impossible to put down.”
—Examiner.com
“The chilling look inside the mind of a
serial killer will haunt readers long after
[it] reaches its stunning conclusion.”
—The Reader’s Round Table
“It isn’t too often that I read a good mystery
where I don’t see the ending coming…
all of the twists and turns make this story
a roller coaster of a ride [and] well worth the read.”
—Nocturne Reads
“An amazing story.
The murders and mystery are chilling.…”
—Romance Books Forum
Edge of Midnight
Leslie Tentler
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
For my husband, Robert.
I love you.
Contents
Prologue (#u3d081fa4-c32e-5a59-8380-68f6c1ae2a56)
Chapter 1 (#u1612dd82-197e-5d2d-9a3c-80d0e8d6eb09)
Chapter 2 (#u9422c18e-3d9a-5720-a78c-29bb07fac659)
Chapter 3 (#u114f0157-56e5-5f72-a98f-ccff407a37c1)
Chapter 4 (#uc2d98814-7ba7-5ed9-9630-5961f85d05e8)
Chapter 5 (#ua6aa171f-4d9b-5bdf-bb42-84327e042dda)
Chapter 6 (#u74ba7fe7-934b-5339-affb-68b7b7386b16)
Chapter 7 (#ud47fae8d-d481-5342-bacf-01fafda3c597)
Chapter 8 (#u087ca65b-94c6-5996-ad5a-4efcbccb6b12)
Chapter 9 (#u1fc29475-05ce-5a7e-af44-20a8b1005194)
Chapter 10 (#u6f7b493d-1eb8-51a5-9ecc-419253c74b14)
Chapter 11 (#ub6b5b338-fc45-5436-8e55-ceb9c838298c)
Chapter 12 (#u546d405a-f2c6-567f-9628-97b866478735)
Chapter 13 (#ufca44396-5d3c-5692-b540-0fbe00950efe)
Chapter 14 (#ufa1ecedb-1aaa-5f34-b475-dd84bb507a43)
Chapter 15 (#ue6f3aa27-6a35-5c96-bc11-c6a91ad858d8)
Chapter 16 (#u65888fb9-09f1-51cc-bd97-683fac136f20)
Chapter 17 (#u1e6904c7-8952-5492-8515-ed866daa925d)
Chapter 18 (#u76aad757-3ee6-507c-988c-a5238fc585b1)
Chapter 19 (#u432c7fcf-f3af-5354-834c-11d87d8afcd7)
Chapter 20 (#u19ed482d-6556-528e-9a5a-2089b795f529)
Chapter 21 (#u3f61ec3d-c203-5690-ad42-0648610edf82)
Chapter 22 (#u75f95b5c-24e5-5d84-8da2-cbf6ce116453)
Chapter 23 (#udbacdfb1-eb61-5ab1-b75b-488b2f76edf6)
Chapter 24 (#ud157bc68-a413-5a58-b46b-cec45a61b070)
Chapter 25 (#u339e48c4-650a-5d84-9650-905f515b5922)
Chapter 26 (#u65e1106e-9cc5-54fa-954d-fc5b25feccd7)
Chapter 27 (#ub37e468c-51bc-5c38-b574-7ea7c06733f5)
Chapter 28 (#ude410635-dddc-5a0f-8cf5-03d75dce88de)
Chapter 29 (#ucc9637d4-06ef-58f5-a7aa-73f219833d2a)
Chapter 30 (#ub4af934b-46ee-5f4b-85ab-78aa984521a6)
Chapter 31 (#u7e0f27d3-d079-5d3c-9b64-8b25139a9d77)
Chapter 32 (#uc430a98d-6688-5c87-aa9e-dea270e52e13)
Chapter 33 (#u7bb2ebd2-0b45-5ebd-ba97-331b4ed6e040)
Chapter 34 (#u358b0197-0306-5159-a3e8-c0441cdfa266)
Chapter 35 (#u3ad7489e-f265-52ff-ac6a-f8f501eacd48)
Chapter 36 (#u5eb0551a-84dd-5230-802e-9c1acb8bceb7)
Chapter 37 (#u897e9cd2-3921-5125-9244-f211b286ecb4)
Chapter 38 (#uce322c37-4e03-56fb-b15d-6f4c8474e423)
Chapter 39 (#udf8e0b51-2ec9-5d44-9e3a-db45649fb933)
Chapter 40 (#u057d679a-f32b-5cb5-9d76-f87b4a4497fb)
Chapter 41 (#u0d58197e-8918-5f94-96ff-0b77f858c9f1)
Epilogue (#ufe5f78c9-8ae5-579b-989f-5463b15c94c1)
Prologue
Atlantic Beach
Outside Jacksonville, Florida
Officer John Penotti took a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee, fighting the drowsiness that always came in the last remaining hours before daybreak. Listening to the command radio’s static, he peered through the cruiser’s windshield as it traveled along a remote portion of state road A1A. His partner, Tommy Haggard, was behind the wheel, humming a tune that had been playing at the all-night diner they’d recently departed. The rain had ended and beside them, the endless stretch of the Atlantic appeared to be nearly one with the blackened sky, with only the foamy whitecaps of ocean waves breaking through the darkness.
“You taking vacation this summer?” Tommy asked.
“You sound like my wife. I keep telling her we already live at the beach.”
Tommy kept his left arm poised coolly on the window’s rim as he used his right hand to steer the cruiser. He was younger than John by a decade and still had the energy to do more than sit in front of his television with a cold beer on his days off. “So do something different. Go hiking in the mountains, or take the kids to Disney World.”
“They’re getting too old for it.”
Tommy gave him a look. “Too old? I had my honeymoon at Disney, man.”
A snide comment formed on John’s tongue, but he let it pass as he placed his foam cup in the holder and nodded toward the road ahead of them. “Look up there.”
“Great,” Tommy muttered, annoyed. He slowed the cruiser and activated the light bar on the roof as they approached.
The silver Acura had taken out a good ten feet of wooden stake fencing that separated the environmentally protected sand dunes from the highway. It had veered off the still-wet road and plowed into one of the mounds, its crumpled front end embedded into white sand. The driver’s side door hung open. They’d had a quiet night so far, John thought, with only a minor traffic violation and some teens trying to buy beer at the local Gas ’N Go with a fake ID.
“Probably a DUI,” he surmised. “Idiot’s probably passed out on the beach.”
Tommy cut the engine but kept the cruiser’s light bar on, staining the Acura with rhythmic blue streaks. Getting out, John pulled his flashlight from his utility belt and trained its beam into the car’s darkened interior.
“Empty,” he confirmed as he moved to the open door. The air bag had deployed in the crash and hung from the steering wheel like a deflated balloon. “Tennessee plate. Want to call in the tags?”
Tommy headed back to the cruiser as John leaned into the car for a closer look. Blood droplets, still wet, were visible on the air bag. Frowning, he raised the flashlight higher, illuminating more of the interior. While it was possible the bag’s release had broken the driver’s nose, there was a lot of blood on the seats—drying brown smears that looked as though rusty fingers had been wiped against the leather.
“The car’s stolen.” Tommy returned to John’s side. “The owner’s vacationing here and reported it missing two days ago.”
“We’ve got blood.”
Tommy peered inside. “Any open containers?”
“No.” Straightening, John walked around to the front end of the car. He put his hand on the hood. It was still warm. Squinting onto the darkened beach, he filled his lungs with briny sea air, then sighed in resignation. “Let’s go look for the driver.”
As they crossed one of the walkovers—plank bridges that provided access to the beach while protecting the dunes from foot traffic—John unsnapped his holster. He noticed that Tommy—always in search of excitement—had already unsheathed his firearm and held it poised in front of him as if he were part of a SWAT team conducting a raid. Normally, he gave his partner hell about his gung-ho tendencies, but this time he acknowledged that the car’s stolen status did increase the possibility of an armed perp.
“Footprints,” Tommy noted as John’s flashlight swept the packed sand at the bottom of the wooden steps leading onto the beach. The prints were narrow with only a shallow indention, indicating that whoever had abandoned the crashed vehicle wasn’t too remarkable in size, and was also barefoot.
They followed the trail for a couple hundred feet before it veered into another village of sand dunes anchored by thick ocean grasses and vegetation. John raised the flashlight, sweeping the area. A shadowed form crouched behind a scraggly cluster of oak trees, barely visible and as still as a rabbit trying not to end up as quarry.
“This is the Atlantic Beach Police,” John announced in an authoritative tone, removing his weapon. Tommy stood beside him, already in shooting stance, his gun’s barrel pointed into the trees. “Come out slowly with your hands on your head!”
The form remained motionless.
“Come out now!” John stepped carefully closer and focused the flashlight’s beam directly on the figure.
“You think we won’t shoot you, asshole?” Tommy yelled. “There’s two of us and only one of—”
John laid a hand on his partner’s arm, pushing the gun’s nose down. “Christ. Put that away.”
The huddled form was a woman. She squatted on the ground, her slender arms wrapped around herself in a protective gesture. A curtain of sleek, dark hair concealed her face, but the flashlight illuminated her skin and the dried blood on her hands, arms and legs. At first, John thought she wore a bathing suit, but realized with a jolt it was only a skimpy pair of panties and a lace bra. She trembled in the beam’s filmy swath.
“Ma’am? You all right?” He came a few steps closer, one hand stretched toward her. To Tommy he said, “Go back to the car, get a blanket and call for an ambulance.”
Once Tommy had taken off, John sank on his haunches to the woman’s level. If she was aware of his presence, she gave no indication.
“Ma’am?” he asked again. His fingers grazed her shoulder, which seemed to break the trance she was in. She cried out and scrambled backward, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her ragged breathing.
“It’s gonna be all right. I’m a police officer. We’re sending for help.”
Her brown eyes were wide with fear or confusion, her pupils dilated, a likely indication of a head injury, or possibly drugs. Her nose was bleeding a little but didn’t appear to be broken, and John wondered how badly she was hurt. She had a lot of blood on her, but he couldn’t ascertain its source. Her wrists, however, were red and badly abraded.
Wherever she’d come from, she’d been tied up.
“What’s your name?”
The woman blinked at him warily.
“M-Mia,” she managed to say after a long moment. She sounded uncertain, her voice barely audible above the roar of the ocean waves behind them. Even in her current distress, she appeared pretty and a little exotic, with an oval face and delicate features, and was maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. John noticed the fresh bruise shadowing her jawline.
“Can you tell me what happened to you, Mia?”
A fresh wave of tremors racked her body as she squeezed her eyes closed. “I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember?”
She shook her head, biting her lip. Her long, dark hair lifted in the ocean breeze. John noticed a wide section of it was several inches shorter than the rest, as if a handful of it had been carelessly lopped off.
She jumped at the sound of Tommy bounding back across the walkover toward them.
“It’s okay,” John assured her. “That’s my partner, Officer Haggard. I’m Officer Penotti. You’re safe now, all right?”
Tommy appeared beside him, out of breath from his speedy trip to the cruiser. “There’s a bus on the way.”
She recoiled as he moved forward to wrap her in the blanket he’d brought back.
“Sorry…I’ll just hand it to you.” Tommy held it out. Her left hand shook as she inched forward, tentatively reaching out to take it.
Two of her fingernails were completely missing, the exposed nail beds raw and oozing blood. Had they been ripped out in some kind of struggle? John swallowed hard. What appeared to be the number eight—or maybe the infinity sign—had been carved into the pale skin of her stomach, the wound angry and red. He watched as she managed to drape the scratchy blanket around herself, her petite frame nearly disappearing inside it. She continued to shiver and rock.
“You think she was raped?” Tommy asked a short time later, voice low. They had stepped several yards from the dunes and allowed the paramedics to take over.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Probably. A female medic had coaxed the woman onto a gurney, and John could only catch glimpses of her through the gaggle of emergency workers. Overhead, blue-and-red flashing lights from the road reflected into the still-dark sky.
“Hey, Carl,” John called to an EMT as he went past, headed back to the ambulance. “What’s the deal?”
“We won’t know until we get her to the E.R. for a tox screen, but my guess is she’s on something. She’s pretty out of it. Doesn’t even remember driving here.”
“What about all the blood on her?”
“Other than her fingers and stomach, there are no other wounds—at least none significant enough to account for all that blood. I gotta get something out of the bus, all right?” Carl trotted away.
Which meant what? That some of the blood belonged to someone else? John removed his uniform cap and ran a hand through his hair.
Nearby Jacksonville was no stranger to violence. Like any large city, it had its share of assaults and homicides, drug deals gone wrong. But for the large part, the surrounding beach communities were quiet, with occasional rowdy teenagers and drunken tourists their most typical problems.
He thought of the two women who had gone missing in Jacksonville over the past two weeks and wondered if there was a connection. Neither had been found, but to his recollection neither of them had been named Mia, either. John had heard the young woman telling the female medic that her last name was Hale. It rang some kind of bell, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Regardless, he didn’t like what was going on here.
1
FBI special agent Eric Macfarlane faced the cluster of oak trees, his suit coat discarded on the warm, pale sand. His eyes were closed, the strong ocean breeze ruffling his light brown hair, and the sun’s heat was like a brand through the back of his blue dress shirt. Seagulls cried in the air overhead.
He tried to imagine what it felt like to crash on an isolated beach road, in a strange car and with lost hours that couldn’t be accounted for.
Eric had read the Atlantic Beach Police incident report multiple times—in his office yesterday at the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit in Washington, D.C., then again on the plane bound for Jacksonville International Airport early that morning. Despite the warmth of the Florida climate, even now the similarities contained in the document made a chill crawl beneath his skin.
If it was him, if he had finally resurfaced…
The thought caused his emotions to skitter like stones skipped on water.
“Eric.”
He turned to see Florida Bureau agent Cameron Vartran walking toward him, looking as out of place in suit pants, tie and a dress shirt on the beach as Eric did himself.
“I thought I might find you here,” Cameron said. Dark-haired, grinning, he shook Eric’s hand warmly, then gave him a congenial back slap that denoted familiarity between the two men.
“Your investigative skills are that good?” Eric asked.
“That and the field office told me you’d checked in and asked about the crash site.”
Eric and Cameron had known one another for years. They had gone through training together at the FBI academy in Quantico, then been partnered as agents for a time before Cameron had transferred back to his native Florida and Eric had joined the VCU.
“How’s Lanie?” Eric asked.
“Pregnant.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really? Congratulations.”
“She can’t wait to see you. It’s been way too long.” Standing with his dress shoes planted in sand, Cameron wedged his hands on his hips just above his holstered gun. As he looked at Eric, his expression faded into seriousness. “When the match came up in ViCAP, I thought that you’d want to know.”
Eric nodded, peering off briefly into the distance. “So how did this end up with the Florida Bureau?”
“Some of the local beach communities have their own police forces, but they’re small and not equipped for major crimes. So the report was passed to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office as a possible tie-in to two other missing females in the metro area over the past couple of weeks. The JSO called us in for assistance. I called you.”
“Have either of the two other women shown up?”
Cameron shook his head. “Alive or otherwise. It’s suspected Ms. Hale was the intended third victim, but somehow managed to escape her abductor.”
“In a stolen vehicle and without any memory of her ordeal.”
“Right. Her toxicology results just came back. Combination of Rohypnol and gamma-hydroxy-butyramine—the date rape drug and liquid Ecstasy—which explains the severe memory loss. The attending physician classified her as having complete anterograde amnesia.”
Eric thought of the victim’s wounds that had been detailed in the report—the second and third fingernails on her left hand excised, a section of her hair cut off, and the numeral that had been carved into her skin. It seemed too precise to be coincidental. He felt a spiraling disquiet. The Collector had been off the VCU’s radar for thirty-four months now, fueling internal speculation that he was either dead or incarcerated somewhere on unrelated charges.
Eric had never been able to accept that.
“Damn, it’s hot.” Squinting against the light, Cameron removed the sunglasses clipped to his shirt pocket and slid them on. “Maybe we can grab a quick bite to eat and catch up before the briefing with the JSO detectives at one. There’s a great seafood place down the road from here. Only the locals know about it.”
They began walking across the sand, and Eric bent to retrieve his suit coat, slinging it over his shoulder. As Cameron talked, he gazed back toward the water. Although the beach here wasn’t as commercialized, he noticed there were still a few people strolling along the shore. The ocean appeared calm under an azure sky and farther out, the grayish outline of naval ships floated on the horizon.
“So Mia Hale—she’s a reporter for the Jacksonville Courier?” Eric said as they came down the planked stairs that led back to the road. The information was still surprising.
Cameron nodded. “A crime reporter. She’d been covering the missing women—both assumed abductions since the women’s families are adamant they aren’t the type to just disappear. Ms. Hale’s last story ran on Monday morning, and she vanished that same night out of the newspaper’s parking garage. The beach police found her hiding here some eight hours later, stripped to her underwear and in pretty bad shape. My guess is that her articles got someone’s attention.”
“What about the vehicle? Any leads from it?”
“The Sheriff’s Office processed it. Forensics on the car is expected back this afternoon. Ms. Hale doesn’t recall how she got in possession of it or even where she drove it from. The vehicle was reported stolen a couple of days earlier from an outlet shopping mall popular with tourists. The mall’s on the other side of the city.”
A few dozen feet away, a wide section of fencing that cordoned off the dunes was missing, its wooden stakes scattered like broken matchsticks between clumps of brown sea oats. It was all that was left of the crash scene. Eric studied the area.
“I’m going to want to talk to Ms. Hale.”
“She was released from the hospital yesterday. We can schedule some time with her.”
The government-issued vehicle the other agent drove was parked behind Eric’s rental sedan on the sandy shoulder of the A1A. Cameron provided directions to the nearby restaurant, then removed his sunglasses again. Concern was evident in his eyes. “The truth is, I wasn’t sure the VCU would want you involved, Eric, considering.”
Rebecca. Her image, her voice, had faded a little in his memory, the realization tightening his jaw. The last time Eric had seen Cameron and Lanie was at the funeral. That had been nearly three years ago.
“I pulled a few strings,” he admitted.
“I bet. And you came down here without a partner?”
“Resources are limited. I told them I’d be better off working with my old one down here.”
“The timing works. My partner tore his ACL. He’s out on leave.” Cameron appeared to choose his next words carefully. “If this really is the guy…are you going to be able to handle it?”
Eric specialized in serial murderers at the VCU. He was all too aware that unsubs had relocated in the past, had gone into hiding to evade capture. But ultimately, their innate desires drove them to hunt again.
“I want closure,” he said simply.
Cameron sighed as he gazed at a passing car on the highway. “I know you do.”
“I don’t want you coming into work, Mia,” Grayson Miller said over the phone. “That’s final.”
“I could just attend the editorial meetings—”
“Give yourself a little time to recover, all right? You live on the coast for a reason—go soak up the sun or something.” He paused to speak to someone in his office, and Mia imagined Grayson sitting at his desk at the Jacksonville Courier, bifocals perched on his nose as he red-penned the hell out of someone’s story. When he returned to the conversation, he lowered his voice. “Look, I’m going to come over there after work and check on you.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve got Will and Justin downstairs—”
“Indulge me. I need to see for myself that you’re all right.”
The sincerity in his words made Mia’s throat ache.
“When I came into work that morning and saw your car here with the door open and your purse inside it, it scared me. I’ve been executive editor here for thirteen years and nothing like this has ever happened. One of my reporters, taken right out of the parking garage. You’re special to me, Mia. It’s a miracle you’re alive.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed down the emotion that seemed to be at her surface these days. “Grayson…”
“I’m bringing dinner. Pizza from Mario’s or Thai from that place around the corner. I expect an email by six letting me know which.”
“Thai food,” she whispered, and disconnected the phone.
Mia remained on the balcony of her apartment, hating the fact that she was shivering despite the sun’s warmth. Placing the phone on the glass-topped patio table, she pulled the sash of her short, kimono-style robe more tightly around herself and stared blindly over the canopy of trees at a lush park in Jacksonville’s historic San Marco neighborhood. Grayson was right, she conceded—she wasn’t ready to go back to work. But the truth she would never admit to anyone but herself was that she didn’t want to be alone. The bustle of the newsroom, a story assignment, even a simple one, could help take her mind off things.
The only problem was, she was part of the story now. Or at least the one everyone was talking about. Mia felt another tremor pass through her.
Try as she might, and she’d tried hard, she couldn’t remember anything. Detectives from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, as well as an agent from the local FBI field office, had quizzed her, but not even a fragment of those lost hours had returned. Her last memory was of leaving the office late after filing a breaking story. She’d said good-night to Ronnie, one of the evening janitors, and walked out to her car in the balmy evening. Mia had clicked the key fob, deactivating her ancient Volvo’s security system, and tossed her purse into the front seat.
Her next memory was of awakening in a crashed car that didn’t belong to her, on an unfamiliar stretch of darkened beachside road. Covered with blood, trembling and confused, her inner voice had screamed at her to run. Hide. Even now, the cold fear of the unknown pooled inside her.
The beach police who’d found her, the emergency workers at the scene and then later, the doctors and nurses in the hospital E.R.—it had all been a blur of people poking at her, taking blood and checking her vitals, asking myriad questions she couldn’t answer. Her lungs squeezed at the recollection of the invasive, degrading rape examination and her acute relief when it appeared she hadn’t been assaulted in that way. Mia had asked one of the nurses to call Grayson, knowing he typically arrived at the paper well before daylight, and discovered that he had already reported her missing.
Remnants of the dull headache that was like a hangover were still with her—the result of the illegal, black market drugs in her system, she’d been told.
What had happened to her? Who had she escaped from and how?
Speculation was that whoever had taken the two women Mia had written about had targeted her, as well. And those women were still unaccounted for. As a reporter, she’d always tried to maintain a level of objectivity. That was all gone now. She felt a kinship with those women, wondered if they were still being held somewhere. Or if they were dead.
The warm breeze lifted her hair. Mia pressed one hand against her stomach, her gaze lingering on the ugly abrasion encircling her wrist. Through the robe’s silk material, she could feel the raised edges of the bizarre, scabbed carving on her skin. No bikinis for me anytime soon, she thought, trying to inject some humor into an otherwise terrifying situation. The tips of the second and third fingers on her left hand were bandaged and sore.
You’re tough, Mia. You’ve been through bad things before and you’ll get through this.
She went back inside her apartment, which was large and airy, with high ceilings and antique heart pine floors. From down the hall she could hear the police scanner she kept in her home office, its low chatter a strange but familiar sound. Walking to the granite-topped island that separated the kitchen from the living area, she eyed the copy of the Jacksonville Courier. Mia had taken it from her doorstep hours earlier but so far had been unable to read it. The headline below the banner was innocuously political—a standoff between the county and state over shoreline zoning rights.
Gathering her courage, she unfolded the paper, scanning the front-page news first and then opening it to the second page, which she laid flat against the countertop. Grayson had already warned her that Walt Rudner, a senior reporter nearly twice Mia’s age, had taken over the story on the local abductions.
A story that now included her, at least anonymously. As she read Walt’s follow-up article to the larger one that had appeared earlier in the week, she felt her stomach flip-flop all over again.
A thirty-one-year-old woman believed to have been a third abductee managed to escape during the early hours of Tuesday morning. Due to her sustained injuries, the victim has so far been unable to provide any information that could be useful to the investigation, according to a spokesperson for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office…
The concluding paragraph stated that the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit out of D.C. had been called in as a special consult.
A rap at the door made her jump. She moved to the foyer and peered out through the peephole, her shoulders sagging in relief when she saw Will Dvorak, who lived on the first floor and also co-owned the building. It bothered her that a simple knock had kicked her pulse into overdrive. Despite all of this, Mia vowed she wouldn’t turn into a frightened shell of who she’d once been.
“Get dressed. We’re going to be late,” Will announced as he entered the apartment, kissing Mia’s cheek. He was medium height, with russet hair and blue eyes. As usual, he was immaculately dressed in khakis and a pressed, short-sleeve shirt, and his designer sunglasses hung from a cord around his neck.
“Dressed? Where are we going?”
“Justin called from Élan. One of his hairstylists had a cancellation and you’re the lucky girl.” Justin Cho was Will’s partner and a successful entrepreneur who operated a number of ventures around the city, including one of Jacksonville’s top day spas. “I told him I’d bring you down.”
Mia shook her head. “That’s sweet. But I’m really not up to it.”
Will gave her an understanding smile but ignored her comment. “Afterward, we’ll have lunch at that place you like on the Riverwalk. The fresh air will do you good.”
She must have appeared unconvinced, because he placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around, guiding her toward the hall bathroom. Will was a good friend. In fact, in many ways he was the closest she had to family.
“Will…”
“This is for your own good.” He flipped on the light, bringing Mia face-to-face with herself in the beveled mirror above the marble vanity. She flinched at her own pale, haunted reflection.
Her dark hair was a mess. And it wasn’t just the fact that it hadn’t been brushed with any recent regularity. The wide swath that had been chopped off during those missing hours gave her a lopsided appearance—as if she were a child who had attempted to give herself a haircut.
“It’s just not a good look, honey,” Will said softly.
Mia frowned, touching the faint bruise on her jaw with her bandaged fingers. Her cocoa-brown eyes were liquid and questioning. She tried again to remember something about what had happened to her, but it was like trying to see through a black mist. She looked at Will in the mirror as he stood behind her. His gaze held concern.
She wouldn’t let this wreck her.
Sucking in a tense breath, Mia left the bathroom to get dressed. “All right. Tell Justin we’ll be there.”
2
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was a combined city and county agency that handled law enforcement in both Jacksonville and the greater Duval County. Eric sat in the JSO conference room on East Bay Street with Cameron and the two detectives who had initially been assigned to the missing-person cases. Detective Boyet was heavyset and balding, while his partner, Detective Scofield, was a blonde, athletic-looking woman in her mid-forties.
“There was more than one blood type in the Acura,” Eric noted as he scanned the forensics report on the car Mia Hale had crashed.
Boyet nodded, his chair squeaking as he shifted his weight. “The blood type on the steering wheel and air bag are a match to Ms. Hale, as are the fingerprints found inside the vehicle. But the larger smears on the front seat are the same blood type as Cissy Cox, our second missing person. Although DNA testing isn’t completed yet, Ms. Cox is O negative. That’s a rare blood type—only about five percent of the population. Its presence makes it likely she was also in the car at some point.”
“Or, the smears were a transfer from Ms. Hale’s hands.” Seeing the detective’s puzzled expression, Eric explained further. “She could’ve come into contact with the second abductee’s blood at the location where she was held. It’s possible she had it on her when she escaped and wiped her hands on the seat before driving away.”
Cameron rose from the table, and he leaned his tall, athletic frame against the wall near a plate-glass window overlooking a line of palm trees. “Speaking of, how did she drive away? The car was stolen—were the keys inside it?”
“It was hot-wired,” Boyet supplied. “Whether she did it herself or the perp did it, Ms. Hale knew at least enough to twist the wires together properly to get the ignition started. I’d say that’s an interesting skill for a journalist. Especially one blitzed out on roofies.”
“Any other prints inside the car?” Eric asked.
“Just hers.”
Detective Scofield spoke. “We’ve had a few dealings with Ms. Hale as a reporter, including the recent disappearances. She’s young, but she’s smart. She was pretty shook up when we spoke to her at the hospital, which is to be expected. It will be interesting to see how she handles all this.”
Photos of the first two missing women, as well as several Polaroids of Mia Hale that were taken during the E.R. examination, lay on the table. Eric studied the closest one, which focused on her face and revealed a faint bruise on her right jaw. She was pretty, he noticed, with a pale olive complexion, dark hair and doelike brown eyes that in the snapshot were glazed with a combination of drugs, confusion and fear. He felt a hard tug of sympathy. His gaze moved to the two other E.R. photos, which displayed the injuries to her abdomen and hand. The interconnecting loops of the number eight were visible on her flat, tanned stomach.
“What kind of twisted bastard does something like that?” Boyet indicated the third Polaroid. Open, raw wounds existed where two of her fingernails should have been. “The E.R. doc said her nails were probably pulled out using pliers or some other tool.”
“Her injuries are consistent with the signature,” Eric said.
Scofield gave a shiver of revulsion. “She’s probably glad she doesn’t have any memory of what happened to her. I know I’d be.”
Eric tried not to think of Rebecca, what she’d gone through. “Are there any similarities or connections between the abducted women? The same socioeconomic status, or maybe they had similar jobs, took the same yoga class or shopped at the same grocery store?”
Cameron pushed off from the wall and began pacing the room. “From a victimology perspective, we haven’t been able to find anything so far. Cissy Cox works at a retail job at the River City Marketplace. Pauline Berger is a stay-at-home mom with a McMansion in Ponte Vedra Beach and a country club membership. Mia Hale lives in the artsy San Marco community, and as you know, works for the Courier. Those are pretty diverse locations and lifestyles.”
“Not to mention, the victims are all over the map, physically.” Scofield pointed to photos of all three women, tapping each with the tip of her ballpoint pen. “A curvy redhead, a tall, Nordic-looking blonde and a petite brunette who’s possibly of mixed Latino or Spanish descent. If you really think this could be a serial killer at work, don’t they have a preferred type?”
“Some do,” Eric acknowledged. “But if this is a resurgence of a past unsub, as I suspect, his tastes are diverse, intentionally so.”
She tilted her head. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“He’s indicated that he likes taking a variety of women. He refers to them as his ‘collection.’”
Scofield blinked. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“He sent digital recordings to the VCU during the previous investigation, although it was likely his voice was altered.” Eric recalled the audios that had been delivered one by one after each woman had gone missing. Even though he didn’t look at Cameron, he felt the weight of his gaze. “The recordings were of his victims being tortured and killed.”
“The VCU deals with some pretty sick shit.” Boyet picked up another of the photos. “What’s the story with the carving?”
“He numbered his victims. There were five women abducted and killed in Maryland before he vanished three years ago. If this is the same guy, your two missing women could be numbers six and seven—”
“Making Mia Hale victim number eight,” Scofield uttered in realization. “Or that was the plan before she got away.”
“Technically, this is still a missing-persons case until a body turns up.” Boyet’s expression was grim. “But if you’re right about the abductor’s identity, Agent Macfarlane, it’s not good. We’re heading into the beach tourist season—Jacksonville doesn’t need a serial killer on the loose.”
“What were you getting at with the second blood type in the car being a transfer?” Cameron asked as he and Eric traveled through the busy JSO lobby a short time later. Although it was still April, heat hit them in a muggy wave as they pushed through glass doors that led to the building’s plaza, then headed west toward the multilevel garage where they had both parked.
“During the Maryland investigation we were able to pick up sounds of two women at once on the recordings.” Eric loosened his tie as he walked. “The first woman—the one being intentionally recorded—was in the foreground. But the AV techs also isolated the sound of a second female in the background on each audio, although the voice was muffled, probably due to a gag.”
Cameron stopped, halting Eric, as well. “Meaning what, exactly?”
He looked out across the water. Jacksonville was known as The River City, and an expanse of the St. Johns that ran through the heart of the downtown was visible from where they stood. He worked to lay out the theory as impassively as possible. “It’s believed the unsub kept two women captive at once. He’d make the newer abductee watch as he killed the woman he’d taken earlier, as a show of power. Then when he brought another woman in, it would be that abductee’s turn to die.”
“Like a revolving door,” Cameron said bleakly. “So you think both women are already dead—that Cissy Cox watched Pauline Berger die, and in turn Mia Hale witnessed Cissy Cox’s execution before she escaped? That’s why she had Ms. Cox’s blood on her?”
Eric thought of the families still holding out hope their loved ones might return home. “Yeah, that’s what I think.”
Cameron’s eyes darkened. He started to say something, but the electronic buzz of his cell phone interrupted him. He looked at the device. “It’s Lanie. I need to take this.”
He stepped a few feet away, talking to his wife about an obstetric appointment. When he closed the phone a minute later, he said, “Lanie says to tell you hello. And that she’s expecting you for dinner tomorrow night. We’d do it tonight but it’s her dad’s sixtieth birthday.”
Eric nodded his understanding. “You’ve got a doctor’s appointment?”
“It’s a routine sonogram. The office called and asked if we could come in early. At four.”
“Go,” he said, glancing at his wristwatch. It was nearly three already. “Lanie needs you. I can handle some things on my own. For starters, I’m going to San Marco to see if I can speak with Ms. Hale today.”
“We can schedule a formal meeting with her tomorrow, after we meet with the rest of the team. Why don’t you get settled in at the rental?”
“I don’t want to wait.”
Cameron took out one of his business cards from the Florida Bureau, upon which Mia Hale’s address and phone number were written. He handed it to Eric.
“The recordings…” He sounded uncertain, as if he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know the answer. “Did you receive one of Rebecca?”
Eric fished in his pocket for his car keys. He thought of the days and weeks he’d waited, both dreading and needing to hear her voice a final time. He didn’t look at Cameron as he answered.
“It was the only one that never came.”
Allan Levi entered the fastidiously neat ranch house.
“Mother? I’m home,” he called, closing the front door behind him. He noticed the interior was too warm, which wasn’t surprising since Gladys was always claiming to be cold and tampering with the thermostat. At least her frugality kept the air-conditioning bills low. Carrying the white paper bag with Walker’s Pharmacy printed on its side, he followed the television noise until he found her sitting at the kitchen table. Her gaunt frame wrapped in a floral housecoat, she was watching the small set on the counter, which she seemed to favor over the larger one in the living room.
“There you are.” Allan bent to kiss the top of her gray head, catching a whiff of baby powder and White Shoulders cologne. He ignored the low warning growl of Puddles, her arthritic Chihuahua, who was curled into a dog bed on the floor nearby.
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she accused. Her eyes remained glued to a religious talk show. “You’ve left me alone all day.”
“You’ve been on your own for three hours,” he corrected. “I had some errands to run. I told you that, remember?”
“Did you get my medicine?”
He gave the bag a shake so the plastic pill vials rattled inside it.
“Humph. Took you long enough.”
“I went into the city to get a television for repair. They’re paying fifty extra for pickup and delivery.”
Allan moved to the sink and washed his hands, taking care to scrub under his fingernails with a small, stiff-bristled brush before drying off with a paper towel. Then he sat in the chair across from Gladys. Depositing the bag’s contents onto the table, he began the process of placing pills and capsules into the lidded, plastic case that helped him keep up with which medications she had to take and when. There were morning, noon and evening compartments for every day of the week. It was tedious, but he didn’t mind the task so much. In fact, he rather enjoyed the order of it.
One red, one blue, one pink.
As he worked, he noticed Gladys had rolled her mobile oxygen canister into the kitchen. The tubing and cannula hung around her flaccid throat like a necklace, however, unused. His eyes slid to the counter. An ashtray sat next to the sink. “Have you been smoking again, Mother?”
“Shush,” she said irritably, waving him off. “I can’t hear my program.”
“I didn’t move all the way back down here to watch you blow yourself up.” Allan frowned. He would have to talk to the cleaning woman—he knew it was that dirty Mexican whore sneaking cigarettes to her and at probably quite a profit. Normally, it would be enough to send him into a rage, but he reminded himself he had a lot for which to be thankful.
For starters, there could be law enforcement crawling all over the place right now.
He placed the last capsule into its proper slot.
“I’m going to my workshop,” he announced, referring to the cinder-block building in back of the property, nestled among the tall pines.
“You spend too much time out there,” Gladys criticized as he rose from the table. She finally looked at him, her watery blue eyes narrowing suspiciously in her lined face. From his vantage point, the droop to the right side of her mouth was clearly visible, a result of the stroke she’d suffered three years ago.
“I need to get started on that television—”
“Boy like you, with an expensive college degree I paid for.” She shook her head, fretful. “And here you are. No wife or kids and not much of a job, if you ask me. ‘Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.’”
He felt his face heat. “I do work, Mother. I’m self-employed. And I take care of you now, too. That’s a job in itself. I’ll be back at five to make you dinner. We’ll have spaghetti with meat sauce—how does that sound?”
Gladys remained sullenly silent. The Chihuahua growled again as Allan left through the kitchen’s screened door. He slunk across the backyard and onto the beaten path through the copse of trees. The skeletal remains of a car went unnoticed. He had much to think about.
It had been two days of uncertainty, but he’d finally begun to relax. No one was coming. According to her own newspaper, she remembered nothing at all. The potent drugs used to make her manageable and compliant had provided the very fortunate ancillary effect of erasing her mind. Allan ran again through his mental checklist, trying to figure out where he had been remiss. What careless blunder he’d made that allowed her to escape.
She had been so special to him, too.
Reaching the cinder-block building, he unlocked the door with his key, flipping on the overhead light as he went inside. Unoccupied. The redhead was rightfully gone, but she should still be here.
He’d first noticed her name bylining the articles on the missing women. His girls. Then a column had run that included her photo. He took a clipped copy from a drawer in his workbench and studied it. The window-box air conditioner behind him hummed. Here, he kept things as cool as he liked.
She was older now, of course. But even after all these years he had still recognized her. What were the chances he’d found her? And that she was a reporter, covering his…work. He didn’t believe in coincidence. It was almost as if it were meant to be.
Allan’s inner voice—the voice of reason—spoke.
She got away and you got lucky. It’s too dangerous. You have to forget about her now.
Pick someone else.
He’d gotten rusty, that was all. Too much time spent trying to keep a low profile, until his darker urges had finally won out. No more Mr. Sloppy, he admonished himself.
The morning’s paper had said the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit was being called in. That couldn’t be helped now and truth be told, it made Allan feel important.
His lips formed a thin smile as he thought of Special Agent Eric Macfarlane and the bond they had shared.
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Leslie Tentler
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Триллеры
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The collection isn′t complete without her.… The writer becomes the story when crime reporter Mia Hale is discovered on a Jacksonville beach—bloodied and disoriented, but alive. She remembers nothing, but her wounds bear the signature of a sadistic serial killer.After years lying dormant, The Collector has resumed his grim hobby: abducting women and taking gruesome souvenirs before dumping their bodies. But none of his victims has ever escaped—and he wants Mia back, more than he ever wanted any of the others.FBI agent Eric MacFarlane has pursued The Collector for a long time. The case runs deep in his veins, bordering on obsession…and Mia holds the key. She′ll risk everything to recover her memory and bring the madman to justice, and Eric swears to protect this fierce, fragile survivor. But The Collector will not be denied. In his mind, he knows just how their story ends."The shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson." —Publishers Weekly on Midnight Caller